Access to patient records/information is highly regulated. Access to this information may be federally regulated, state regulated and/or regulated at the local level, such as by a hospital institutional review board (IRB). However, access to these records may be provided to those people, doctors, nurses and the like, who provide medical treatment. For example, an emergency room doctor may need to access the medical records of an unconscious accident victim who cannot communicate any information to the doctor. Thus, although a patient's privacy is very important, there is a delicate balance between keeping patient records confidential to protect the patient's privacy and providing access to at least portions of patient records for treatment, research and/or medical purposes. Conventional methods of regulating access to patient records can be very complex, over inclusive, under inclusive and/or inflexible.